Before
by hiyoris-scarf
Summary: Have you heard this story before? Like many stories, it starts a long time ago. And, like many stories, it begins with someone wanting something—wishing for something. A wish strong enough—desperate enough—to make a story worth the telling.


**A/N: because the reincarnation thing tOTALLY hasn't been done for these two before, *cough cough***

 **this is probably a really out-there origin story maybe, possibly, but…...¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ besides, we've all heard the tsukuyomi theory. here's something that's...NOT that.**

 ** _(*sweats* what wips i don't hav e wips)_**

* * *

Have you heard this story before?

Like many stories, it starts a long time ago. And, like many stories, it begins with someone wanting something—wishing for something.

A wish strong enough—desperate enough—to make a story worth the telling.

* * *

 _The girl was three years old. She was born into a life of prosperity—to a man of wealth, and wisdom, and kindness. Her family lived a little way from a small village, and their house sat on the curve of a gray, shining cliff. The ocean winked from far below, as though its surface was made of nothing but diamond._

 _The little girl's mother combed her hair at night, while singing to her. She sang only lovely things, about the ocean and the kingdoms underneath it, so the little girl would only have lovely dreams._

 _This happened a long time ago, when dreams danced the tightrope between this world and the world over yonder. And the little girl's dreams, as beautiful and bright as the sea, lured creatures from the darkness._

 _'Cross over to us,' they would whisper, and tried to approach her. They reached out with claws, and scratched at her from the shadowside where they lived. The little girl clung to her mother and cried. Instead of her lovely dreams, she began to see awful things: things with too many eyes, and too many voices, that would show her all the horrors of what lay beyond. She wanted to stop dreaming._

 _Her father and mother wanted to cry with her. They did everything they could: they visited every sage, every medic within a hundred miles. They prayed in every shrine to every god—even to the gods of death, and storms, and war. But the gods were all too busy with their own affairs._

 _The little girl cried and cried, until at last her eyes stopped watering, and her soul began to drain out like a sieve of water in the desert. Nighttime, once pleasant, became a horror to her family, because the little girl would toss and wail and say she wanted it to end—she wanted it all to end._

 _And her mother, with a sinking soul and cold hands, prayed to anything that would listen. She prayed to all the deaf gods again, and when they ignored her, she prayed to the forest, and the river, and the sky itself._

 _'I have everything—everything except the one thing I want,' she whispered, standing at the window and taking a small, heavy coin out of her sleeve. She kept talking to nothing, no one. Or perhaps, she talked to the night itself, or to the pale disc in the sky._

 _'I'll offer anything to you,' she said, numbly. 'Whoever can help me—I'll give you everything I have.'_

 _She knelt down there, right next to the window. Her hand lay outstretched on the windowsill. The coin glinted in the moonlight._

 _As hours passed, the mother retreated inside herself, weeping without shedding tears, and finally fell fast asleep._

 _From outside the window, a hand extended to take the coin from her open palm._

 _'Your wish has been heard—loud and clear.'_

 _Some time later, the mother woke, and went back to her daughter's room. Dread filled her heart, but when she looked down at the little bed, she saw—for the first time in so, so long—that the little girl's hands were unclenched, and her brow unwrinkled._

 _When the mother remembered the coin she had held out, she checked the windowsill, only to find it empty._

 _Her eyes filled with tears again—but not those bitter tears of frustration and fear. The mother welcomed these tears, just as she welcomed the listening presence that had taken her payment._

 _'Please, keep her happy. Protect her.'_

* * *

Like many stories, it has a first meeting.

Some meetings happen by chance. Some are scheduled by fate's fingers, written over the fabric of reality in invisible, indelible script.

Some meetings are missed. If that had happened in this story, you wouldn't be hearing it.

* * *

 _The girl was ten years old. She was full of adventure, and honesty, and brilliance. Even at that age, eyes were beginning to follow her as she went with her small family to and from the town._

 _'She'll be beautiful someday,' the housewives whispered to each other._

 _'She already is,' their husbands responded too quickly._

 _The girl didn't remember her dreams—the good or the bad. Her nights had been quiet, and restful, and absolutely void—ever since she could remember. Sometimes, she thought—perhaps…but then something would always distract her, and she left it alone for another day._

 _There was one thing she loved: to take walks by herself, sneaking out the back door of the old house. She would walk down from the cliff on a narrow rock path, and stand ankle-deep in the ocean, listening to the crash and tug of the tide._

 _'Be careful,' she heard a voice say from behind her. 'The undertow is strong.'_

 _She turned around, and saw a boy._

 _He didn't look like any other boy she had ever seen. His black hair was tied in a short ponytail, like many of the men she had seen. He was dressed like one of the village boys, and wore the same kind of shoes. He wasn't tall—taller than her, yes, but not by much—and when she looked right at him, he seemed to shiver a little bit—like a reflection in gently rippling water._

 _'I will,' she replied, and looked around to see who he had come with. By the time she looked back, he had already vanished._

* * *

Have you heard this story before?

A girl travels with her family to the oceanside. They walk along the beachfront, which once, many years ago, soared across the horizon as a towering cliff. Among the driftwood and broken stones, she sees something shining in the sand. She picks it up.

It's a coin.

* * *

 _The girl was sixteen years old. She married a man who was wealthier than her father, and handsomer than any of the boys who had grown up with her in the village. She married him, even though he looked at her like a wolf looks at the sleeping flock._

 _She got married because her mother was sick, and her father was becoming one of those silent, wounded men, who start grieving before the people they love are gone._ _She got married so she wouldn't burden them_

 _She married that man, in particular_ _—though she wouldn't say it herself—because sometimes, in a certain slant of light, the man's eyes looked blue. She moved away from the seaside, away from the ebb and lift of the waves that had once caught her up in their arms._

 _When she left, she began to dream again. And even though her dreams started out lovely, they lured the monsters out._

 _The girl, the wolf's bride, began to hear the voices again._

 _She appealed to her new husband in desperation. She was still a child, shrinking from the strangeness of her cold new home, terrified of the cries that sprang from her nightmares._

 _'Please,' she groaned, on her hands and knees before him. She held her head, hoping it would be enough to keep them all quiet—to give herself some peace. 'I don't know what to do. I just want to sleep.'_

 _The man she bowed before turned away from her, his lip curling in disgust._

 _'I didn't intend to marry a possessed woman, or a witch,' he spit. She recoiled from his cruelty like a dog that had been kicked._

 _But he couldn't cast her off, not now that they were married—so he locked her in the smallest room, a bare, windowless cell in the belly of his house. He told all his friends that his beautiful new wife was very ill._

 _A few days later, when he considered that she had now had time to get control of herself—or, if not that, to at least bash her head against the stones until the voices ended—he opened the door and found her lying there, as still as a corpse. He moved her to a larger room—one upstairs, with a window—and ordered his servants to return her to herself._

 _But when one of them came to him in a frenzy, and brought him to her room, the bed had been stripped bare. He looked out the window—down at the roughly knotted rope of curtains and bed-coverings—and he knew he had been beaten._

 _The girl found her way to the edge of the forest. Where the border of trees met the meadow, there lived a loud, beckoning darkness._

 _'Welcome, darling,' it said with many tongues. Its many eyes watched her as she shook with exhaustion, and fright, and hunger._

 _'Welcome. We will help you never to hurt again—you will never have to cry—you will not suffer anymore. We can show you your family again.'_

 _She didn't mean to—not at first—but the girl began to walk, slowly. Then faster. She stumbled, tripping on jutting roots, and the forest's shadow extended toward her with all its arms. Tongues licked at the edges of the trees, laughing a wet, hungry laugh._

 _'Stop!' shouted a voice at her back._

 _And she did stop. She had heard that voice before. The girl turned around, and saw a boy._

 _Something began to bubble up in her like foam—a memory of another boy with the same eyes, who had come to her at the oceanside._

 _Except now his outline didn't shimmer, and he looked older—and there was something awful in his face._

 _'Don't listen to it,' he told her. His voice was so cold that she shivered. 'It's a—'_

 _His mouth kept moving, and she stared at it, trying to discern the words. Her ears were ringing too loudly to hear. It looked like he was telling her something important, but she was so tired…so tired, and afraid, and her knees began to buckle as she stood there at the edge of the forest, with the voices still reaching out for her._

 _She didn't remember how, but she was suddenly far away from the trees and the groping shadows. Far away from her husband's house and its rough stone walls. And then—she realized that she had fallen, and this boy—this strange, yet familiar boy—was carrying her. His arms under her were warm and real, but they shook._

 _'I'm sorry.'_

 _The girl tried to move her head, but her neck was too tired. And she was so comfortable—at last, after so many awful dreams._

 _'I couldn't help you…not while you were in there,' he said. He sounded so disgusted with himself, and his hurt echoed in her._

 _If she could just open her lips—she could say something to him—_

 _She woke up in the dark, on top of something soft. Lifting her head, she looked around, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw only a small fireplace. Next to it was huddled a black shape, in semi-silhouette against the dwarfed, hissing flames._

 _'Who are you?' she asked, but it really only came out as: 'who…?'_

 _He turned at the sound of her voice, and his paleness in the dim room shook her. He had a sharp, shadowed, frightening face, and for a moment she was certain that one of the creatures who plagued her nights had at last come to life with her waking._

 _'I don't want to tell you,' he said at last, very quietly. And he turned away from her again, to face the fire._

* * *

The girl carries the coin with her, back to the city where she lives. Something about it keeps her hand warm. It's an old coin, but it feels heavy in her palm. It's a bizarre, yet friendly feeling.

She puts it in her purse. She doesn't even know if she can spend it anywhere. But it feels so nice, just to keep it with her.

* * *

 _The girl was seventeen years old. Her year ended and the next began under the dark ceiling of that quiet, soft, secret place. During the time she mended, she learned things._

 _'You're special,' the boy told her. 'You see those things—those evil things that come to you all by themselves. You're like a lure to them.'_

 _She stared down at her clenched fists, fingernails digging pink crescents into the skin._

 _'Not always,' she said, half-whispering._

 _He reached out for her hands, and out of instinct she flinched away. He drew back, his glance an apology._

 _'It's not because there's anything wrong with you,' he said. Her eyes flickered up to his, but he was looking away from her again._

 _'Think of it more like—I don't know—I guess…moths, fluttering around a lamp. They…can't stay away from brightness.'_

 _The girl lowered her head to hide a faint blush, but the boy didn't see it. He was still looking away, into the flames._

 _'I was born of a wish,' he muttered. 'The least I could have done was grant it properly.'_

 _Her breath catches._

 _'…What did you say?'_

* * *

This is what happens: give a coin, and get a wish. Wish hard enough, and something will hear you. Some far-off star, perhaps—or something made of earth, and salt, and fire.

This is what happens when a human creates a god.

* * *

 _A few days later, when she had recovered more, the two of them returned to the village by the sea—to the quiet house where her father stayed, still waiting for her mother to come back from the place her illness had at last taken her._

 _The girl didn't notice the odd looks given to her by the village housewives and their husbands. She didn't hear them whispering about the pretty young wife of that great, wealthy man, coming back alone—and so pale, and so thin—_

 _Because she wasn't alone, after all._

* * *

And no matter what happens, that god can never forget what he was created for. Not even in this, the last of a hundred lifetimes.

* * *

 _The girl was still seventeen, and her eyes were serious when she turned to look at him—this boy god with a century in his eyes._

 _'Now, tell me,' she ordered._

 _They sat on the cliff's edge together, side by side. He gave her a confused, sideways look, and she nearly laughed in his face. But the seriousness returned quickly._

 _'Tell me why I was all alone in there. And why—why the voices came back.'_

 _Her own stayed steady, even though her bones wanted to liquify when she thought of the loneliness—the terror, in that place._

 _'Sorcery,' he said, simply. And that was that. Because some things have sharper teeth, even than gods._

 _The girl had more questions, but she kept her lips sealed around them. Bottled up, they expanded in her throat—and she must have looked strange, because he looked back at her with a concerned, curious expression._

 _'What is it now?' he asked, and again, she nearly laughed._

 _'Well…it's just…have you been watching me? Ever since—'_

 _Her voice swelled up and got stuck, and the words wouldn't come out. He smiled—the first time she'd ever seen him do it—and all her breath was sucked up into the atmosphere._

 _'I know you very well,' was all he said, still smiling. And then—right then—she didn't think she'd ever be able to breathe again._

 _'Your face is red,' he said, after a few moments._

 _'And you're awfully blunt, for someone who's supposed to be a god,' she retorted, blushing harder._

 _He laughed at her. She laughed at herself. They both turned away, and the minute of silence afterward was awkward—and then delightful._

 _'I'm going in,' she said at last, and he nodded._

 _'I'll stay here.'_

 _She carried those three words into the house with her, like little pearls in her pocket._

 _I'll stay here._

* * *

"That's a weird name for a cat," her friends say, as they stare at the LOST PET poster on the busy street. She lets herself ignore them. Touno's Jungle Savate is so much more interesting than some cat.

The coin is heavy and warm, but she's so used to it by now that it doesn't register with her. The topic of conversation shifts away from lost cats.

"Is there anyone _you_ like, Hiyori?" they ask her.

* * *

 _The girl had married the wolf, but she fell in love with the god._

 _She fell, like little pieces of soil dropping into the ocean, crumbling a bit more over time. And it was too late for her: before long she had eroded entirely—she had drowned—and the despair and the ecstasy of it was almost too much for her._

 _'How could I?' she asked herself as she tossed in her bed, wide awake. She asked the same questions for hours, until the light again became the youthful pink of morning._

 _'Couldn't I have prevented this, somehow? He's a god. I'm,'—her breath hitches sharply._

 _'—I'm not. I'm…helpless.'_

 _She wasted the rest of her time in utter foolishness: half-avoiding him, half-following him._

 _'Is something wrong?' he asked, after she had finished caring for her ailing father and putting him safely to bed. They sat on their cliffside spot together. This was the first day the sky was all clouds._

 _'No.'_

 _'You're lying.'_

 _'No, I'm not.'_

 _'Your face is doing the 'I'm lying' thing.'_

 _'That's nonsense.'_

 _'Hey, I'm an expert on both you and nonsense.'_

 _'Well, I didn't have much of a say in that, did I?!'_

 _She exploded at him, enraged at the effortless accuracy of his ability to read her._

 _'It's not fair,' she kept going, even though a tiny voice screamed at her to stop while she still could. 'It isn't! You've been hiding from me this whole time—protecting me from my own nightmares—and I don't even know you at all._ That's _what's wrong. You know all of me. And—and nothing I have is secret from you. And you—'_

 _She gasped, and the air shattered inside her like glass. What came out—after all that shouting, was so quiet:_

 _'—You're a mystery—a god. Why do you get to be a mystery, when you've seen everything about me that's weak? That's…human?'_

 _She sniffed, and looked down. She thought she really had made him angry, because he was silent for so long._

 _When she at last summoned the rest of her courage—from somewhere near her ankles—she looked at his face. He was staring at her, his eyes round and shocked. There was no trace of amusement, or anger, in his face._

 _He looked scared._

 _'I wouldn't say there's anything about you that's weak,' he finally muttered, shifting his weight uncomfortably as he sat next to her. 'Nothing about you has ever said that. Never. Not as long as I've known you.'_

 _Something was new here—something frightening, and fierce, building in the bottom of her stomach like a miniature sun. And before it could boil up through her lips, he said it first—like he wanted nothing more than to get it out with and over already._

 _'I love you, of course. I…didn't have much of a say in that, either.'_

 _They sat there, speechless with each other—the girl of seventeen and the boy god—and gold broke on the cliffside as the clouds opened for sunset._

* * *

"No, I don't think there's anyone," Hiyori begins, lagging a little behind her comrades.

And something makes her turn her head, fluttering against her ribs like an ancient memory—and then, to the dismay of everyone around her, she bolts into the street.

* * *

 _Maybe they undid some magic, those words. 'I love you,' passed between the god's lips, and a barrier crashed down around them._

 _The girl was seventeen, and no older, when the evil she had unwittingly wed found her once again._

 _'It's poor manners to say that to another man's wife,' said a cold voice, and her stomach quaked. She had heard that voice before. She stood up, slowly, and turned around in time to see her husband._

 _'Eat them both,' he told the wolves at his side: huge, masked wolves, slavering with meaty jaws and dripping fangs. He raised his hand high, and brought it down again with a quick, deadly motion, like a knife slashing._

 _The animals lurched forward. The sunset turned red._

* * *

Her empty body bounces off the fender of the truck, spilling to the ground as limp as crumpled paper.

* * *

 _She tried to shout something, but before it left her, she was tucked safely behind his back, away from the cliff's edge. He was standing between her and the masked creatures._

 _'You're not in your safe little mansion anymore, sorcerer,' he growled, and a chill crawled up her spine. Not an entirely unpleasant one._

 _The wolves whimpered. The sorcerer didn't seem to care that his pets were frightened. He was laughing—a high, hideous laugh—and even from where she stood the girl saw that his face had become something inhuman._

 _It was too quick. It circled around behind her: a shadow did. The voices—they came back, all at once, screaming into her with enough to make her cry aloud._

 _Everything was white, and she was rent with a pain that transcended physical—she fell down with her face and her eyes on fire with the agony of it—_

 _She came to herself a moment later, or an eternity later, and heard herself asking—begging—to be killed._

 _'Please! Please, I'm sorry! Please, I…want…' she trailed off, ashamed of what she had said without any control over it. She felt ripped apart, all the way down to her seams._

 _There was a new sound: a terrible, dry, hacking sob. She thought at first it originated from her, but it didn't—it was from the person crouched over her._

 _'Stop it,' he demanded, though there was little force behind it. 'Please. Don't do that to her.'_

 _The sorcerer ignored him. He spoke only to the girl._

 _'If you had only fulfilled your purpose, I wouldn't have to hurt you. If you had only brought the phantoms to me, like you were meant to, then I wouldn't have to kill your sorry little bodyguard.'_

 _And instantly, she was submerged again, inhaling hell itself through her throat and her eyes, and clawing at herself desperately—but something held her arms up and away, even though she kicked and twisted and tried to choke on her own tongue._

 _Finally, finally, it stopped again; she moaned, and shuddered. She inhaled dirt and coughed on it. A hand, gentle and warm and feather-light, brushed her hair back, and lifted her neck up. She was supported against a body, and she clung to it, whimpering, anticipating the next wave of torment._

 _'Hey,' he murmured to her. 'Hey, now. It's all right.'_

 _He pushed something into her hand. Something warm, and flat, and round. It was too heavy for its small size._

 _'Hang onto this for me, okay?'_

* * *

"What are you, a complete idiot?" she screams in his face, this stupid, _stupid_ boy who threw himself into the street after a stray cat.

* * *

 _'A god's better than some old phantoms,' she heard him say, as he kept cradling her. Her body was wrung out, and her eyes felt dry and bloodless. 'How's that for a deal?'_

 _There was a slow, calculating silence while the sorcerer considered. The girl was able to crack one eyelid open, and see that he was tapping one long, elegant finger against his chin. One of his pets circled his feet, still eyeing the god who held her with one nervous white eye._

 _During the pause, she tried to croak something—and was shushed._

 _'Just keep that safe in your hand. It'll all be fine.'_

 _She wanted to ask him: if it was fine, why was blood running down his face? If it was fine, why was he pressing her to him—like he was afraid her soul would slip out if he weren't there to catch it?_

 _Her fingers closed so tightly around the little round, flat object that her knuckles ached._

 _'I have conditions,' said the sorcerer, at last. 'You must let me reincarnate you, according to my wishes. You will become my own god.'_

 _Against the girl's forehead, she felt his throat bob spasmodically._

 _'Agreed. And her?'_

 _'The girl will be spared more torment. I will give her the death she has asked for.'_

 _'Wait—no, that's not—'_

 _'You only asked for me to stop hurting her. I think this counts.'_

* * *

"Thanks for that, by the way," he tells her as she's in the hospital. "Though I didn't really need you to save me."

Something tugs at her: an echo of an echo. She must have imagined it. That's all it could be, really. Her imagination…or her dreams.

Anyway, it feels correct to give him this coin. She doesn't really know why she's hung onto it for this long.

"Put me back to normal then, Yato," she says, sternly, after he blithely pockets the coin. She doesn't ask him why his hand lingers over it, loosely curled, as though the thing emanates its own heat.

"Your wish has been heard—loud and clear!"

So the girl and the god face off: one determined to put herself back to normal—the other hoping he can make himself new—and they both feel it, and say nothing.

They have both heard this story before.

* * *

 _She began to feel loose, and airy: almost as though her spirit were floating around freely inside her skin. He held her tighter, closer to his warmth, and bent over her like a miser over his treasure._

 _'You can't forget me,' he whimpered into her neck. 'You can't. Promise.'_

 _She didn't know if it was even a possible thing to promise, but she still nodded faintly._

 _'Next time, then?' she asked, at last finding her voice. It was such a weak, shaking thing. It sounded like it should belong to an old woman._

 _He lifted his head, and he was still beautiful, so beautiful—even covered in blood—and with something even darker, that drifted across his skin like a sizzling storm cloud._

 _'Next time,' he agreed. His voice was broken, but smiling._

 _And then he kissed her. His lips were cracked, and slick with blood, and completely, luminously perfect._

 _She tasted something warm, dropping from his face to hers. It was more salt than blood. She didn't want to let go. She didn't want to leave him all alone, empty, and aching._

 _'It's all right,' he said, letting his nose brush hers, butterfly soft. 'I'll be all right. I'll find you.'_

 _She nodded again._

 _And then the girl, who was young, and in love, and fading, whispered to her crying god:_

 _'You will. And maybe—next time—I'll save you instead.'_


End file.
